Mandriva 2009.1 Spring n compaq presario 3225AU
Recently I installed Mandriva 2009.1 Spring Edition Free Download (32bit) version on my Compaq Presario 3225AU.
Configuration of this Laptop is:
- AMD Athlon 64
- Nvidia 6150 GO display
- 1.5 GB RAM (increased from 512MB)
- 80 GB SATA HDD
I had tried different distros on this laptop in last 2 years but the only one worked well was OpenSuse 10.2, till date I have had no problems with that, and have been using that one.
So here is what I did.
Booted with the Mandriva DVD, selected almost 4GB of packages to be installed.
Flawless installation. Took around 35 to 40 minutes, includes the time i spent on selecting packages, partitioning, setups etc. the packages got installed in around 30 Minutes.
By default the X was working with the default nvidia drivers, the graphics looked good. Installed glxgears separately to check the FPS, was getting around 400 to 500.
Sound card was also working, even the head-phones jack was working.. cool.. could never make it work on OpenSuse 10.2. Sound support was enabled for mp3, ogg is available by default.
Next thing was video, but before this I wanted to get the actual nvidia driver from nvidia site, downloaded the Nvidia binary package, tried running, It complained the some stuff was missing etc. So dumped the idea of doing the same.
I decided to install the propitiatory driver through the XFdrake, it can fetch the drives from the non free reposotories and install them for you. So when I selected my card as — vendor - nvidia 6100 series or above — it asked me if you would like to download the same from the net.
On saying yes to it, download started, for around 30 minutes it kept download some stuff asked me for the original dvd, and suddenly… kaput… installation failed.
Tried it twice.. failed twice.. so decided to get the rpms manually and get them installed manually. from the following discussion at mandriva forum — got and idea what RPM to download. I downloaded the follwing RPM from rpmfind.net
- dkms-nvidia-current-180.51-1mdv2009.1.i586.rpm (1.7M)
- nvidia-current-doc-html-180.51-1mdv2009.1.i586.rpm (112K)
- nvidia-current-kernel-2.6.29.1-desktop586-4mnb-180.51-1mdv2009.1.i586.rpm (2.5M)
- nvidia-current-kernel-desktop586-latest-180.51-1.20090422.1mdv2009.1.i586.rpm (2.2K)
- x11-driver-video-nvidia-current-180.51-1mdv2009.1.i586.rpm (6.9M)
Manually installing these using just rpm does not works because there are some rpms that are to be installed from the main DVD.
as root gave the following command:
# urpmi (followed by names of all the above packages)
The installer told that some more packages will also be installed from the main DVD, so inserted the main DVD.
Got loads of messagges about preparing and installing those packages, got some messages saying some new kernel was install etc.
Finally the system tell you to boot into new kernel. Rebooted the system and had a new entry for Mandriva.
Booted into that, and the new nvidia-driver was up and running.
running glxgears now gave a FPS of around 2200.
Over all the stuff looks cool enough.
Sound is working fine, even the special key’s are working fine. DivX format worked fine, had to install xine, which is available on the DVD.
Over all looks like a cool Distro. What i am missing in this is Quanta Plus 
June 19th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Hi,
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June 20th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Nice, hope this article will be useful to others.
June 21st, 2009 at 5:00 am
It’s strange that the install of the driver failed.
If I were you, I would have disable the DVD media and re-add the online media from the media manager or http://easyurpmi.zarb.org.
Don’t hesitate to read the doc at http://doc.mandriva.com
June 21st, 2009 at 8:58 am
Hi..
I know it should have had taken the drivers automatically, but some how my attempts failed. After searching, some results indicated that some of the repositories were broken. It could also be possible due to a bad net connection I was getting at that time.
Anyways the problem got solved by downloading the stuff manually. It would be useful for people who have bad net connection etc.
Thanks for adding your comment and giving the link to ttp://easyurpmi.zarb.org and http://doc.mandriva.com
Personally I use Slackware, but Mandriva is always the first choice of distributions which i recommend to other.
regards
Dexter
June 23rd, 2009 at 5:38 am
[...] http://fossist.net/?p=478 [...]
June 23rd, 2009 at 5:57 am
[...] Mandriva 2009.1 Spring n compaq presario 3225AU Sound is working fine, even the special key’s are working fine. DivX format worked fine, had to install xine, which is available on the DVD. [...]
April 10th, 2010 at 5:46 am
Hi,
I installed fresh Mandriva 2010.0 on my HP Pavillion DV 7 Laptop and later found that most of my DVDs — old or new — just won’t play. Xine complains that they may be “crypted”, yet other DVDs play, regardless of the region. I put the same DVDs in my older laptop and they ALL play fine. In my conspiracy-theory mind, iI think this may be because Mandriva is assisting (or whatever) Fluendo sell “ability to play DVDs”. I partly suspect the new-fangled DVD burner/player hardware to be at fault, but i would imagine that the positive reviews of the hardware would mean enough people would buy it and raise the issue with Mandriva or their distro vendor.
I don’t think i’m missing drivers is the problem. I installed all the drivers i’ve ever had to find and install the same way or pretty much the same way as at least the previous 3 or 4 years. Now, it’s as if Mandriva is deliberate just ignoring the dependencies. I realize it’s the Free version, and IIRC, the PowerPack version includes Fluendo. But, for now, I don’t want to get the PowerPack because every download costs me hundreds of MB against my monthly 5 GB download via my wireless ISP. So, when i botch or want to tweek an install, i can wipe my monthly 5GB limit in about 3 installs. Doing this one time cost me $100 extra on my cell bill and i was enraged enough to vow to never hit too close again. Also, i one time (IIRC, late 2008 or early 2009) purchased PowerPack, had the install fail, and probably because i waited too long (weeks) to get around to trying again, i no longer could access the binary and never got a complete transfer. Yet, despite my one or two emails to Mandriva, i never heard from them. SO, i vowed to not pay until they redress this sore point without my having to prompt them. They KNOW when people access restricte, paid-for content, and they should know when a complete image worth of data or transfer-success event has happened. If a failed or too-short a download time happens, they should rememdy it and keep contacting the paying customer until the client says “success” or “successed”.
Going to various repos didn’t help either. I’m not enthusiastic about breaking the install to much more as most things work, even audio in Altec Lansing hardware in the laptop. But, what is infuriating is that the new sound server is insane when crossfade is used. Audio also comes out of the speakers even when the headphone/speaker jack is plugged in, so i have to go int Kmix to lower but not mute the line channel. If crossfade is enabled, the stupid thing keeps resetting the audio level to medium to high. Depending on other settings, this level can blast quite high. It embarrassed me quite intensely when one day i was sitting in Borders with my rubbery earbuds in. So, i was tooling along, listining to crisp, sharp Korean pop music, and a Japanese guy gets taken in hand by the cafe’s manager for playing his music aloud. After about a half minute, i decided to find out whether i was the problem. After removing an earbud, i heard my laptop blasting away, because of a so-called feature decided upon by HP and Altec Lansing, a feature that is not a PITA under win7, but under Linux is an extreme nuisance. It didn’t help that Mandriva had no cause or didn’t see fit to check for hardware that could play out of 2 headphone jacks and one line out to see if embarrassments might follow. Good thing it was only MUSIC streaming out of my speakers as i sat blissfully listening through earbuds. I STILL fell twitches of embarrassment, and that was over 2 months ago.
Another thing that maddens me is that KDE 4 under Mandriva STILL forgets which virtual desktops hold which activities. I haven’t figured out how to make the wretched cashew or KDE4 component at fault behave sanely. Under KDE3, telling the session manager to remember the apps on each desktop worked beautifully. Now, with every single test of KDE4 since the past year has miserably humbled and belittled me. So, what happens is that every time i reboot or any time i end my session to clean up resources (yes, there are some leaks or some problems, and i inevitably have to reboot, or on the occasion that the suspend doesn’t wake up, i have to power off and reboot), the restat of KDE4 begins with my having to drag some 20 different opened apps to their respective desktops. Oh, the SIZES of the app windows get remembered, but not the desktop locations. Surely Mandriva knows this is an issue even if it is a KDE issue. IIRC, I never, EVER had this problem with PCLinuxOS. Even in PCLOS, 3D was working desktops with Compiz worked.
At some point, i just felt vanquished and gave up. It’s almost as if i feel i awoke from a sever sugar high and like a Pavlovian dog, i just feebly mumble and accept it. This should not be so. It also should not be very hard to search for and find answers.
Thank you for allowing me to vent.